


everybody's got their limits; nobody's found mine!

by arasol



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Autistic Character, Gen, Not Ship focused, Post-Game AU, ableist slurs, autistic himiko yumeno, autistic kaito momota, kaito doesn't take his own advice, kaito is mean to himself, kaito's friends love him, lots of internalized ableism, the term for hiding autism symptoms is literally called masking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arasol/pseuds/arasol
Summary: Kaito wondered if he looked like a hero. If a man who wore slippers was ever the kind of savior that anyone imagined.He wondered if a man who was an absolute moron was ever the kind of savior that anyone even wanted.-Kaito Momota is autistic.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito
Comments: 17
Kudos: 59





	everybody's got their limits; nobody's found mine!

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, hi. First and foremost, and I want to wish Kaito Momota- the subject of this fic, and most of my better works- a very, very happy birthday. He is so deeply wonderful and full of interesting problems worth exploring. And for this fic, I wanted to focus on how Kaito being autistic could have shaped his character arc.  
> Autistic Kaito has been a headcanon I've had very strong convictions for since last July, and this fic has felt like something I needed to write since this January, which was when I first started it. It's taken many different shapes and forms since then; it was originally a fic about Kaito's diagnosis as a child, but I wanted to focus more on what happened to Kaito in the game, and how relatable he is to me as an autistic person.  
> Everyone thinks Kaito an idiot. He has a daily routine during the killing game, he's naive and gullible, Kiibo's flashlight function hurts him for some inexplicable reason, he doesn't know how to have a normal conversation with his sidekicks. He masks how weak he is with a persona that he carefully crafted. Kaito is the absolute best.  
> If anyone wants to talk to me more about why I think Kaito is autistic (I couldn't cover everything in this fic even if I tried; I call it a "pet headcanon," but truthfully, we're well past that at this point), please feel free to comment on this post, or even message me on tumblr @kaitomomotah. And if I could make even one person go, "Hey, yeah, I can see Kaito being autistic," than my goal here is done.  
> Thank you, Kaito, for being so wonderful and fun to explore. Happy birthday!

“Hey, Maki Roll, do you think I’m an idiot?” Kaito asked his girlfriend one night before they fell asleep. She was in bed next to him, reading a book on marine biology under the soft light of their lamp, and he didn’t realize until after he asked that it probably wasn’t the best time to interrupt her. She was busy.

“You have a tendency to act like a moron, yes,” Maki Roll answered, not looking up from her book. He felt a shred of shame at her answer, even though it was the answer that he was expecting. He knew deep down that Maki Roll loved him more than anything else, and that she didn’t mean to be hurtful with her answer. Just blunt, and maybe truthful.

They were both quiet for a moment after her answer. “Though maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Maki said, guilt evident in her voice. “I know you’re sensitive about it.”

“No, that’s alright,” he said. “I asked.”

Maki Roll closed her book gently and turned her head to look at Kaito. “Why… _are_ you so sensitive about that, anyways?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… we all _know_ you’re not an idiot, even if you act like one. You speak three languages and understand aeronautical engineering. And you’re just so… confident in yourself. All the time. Even when you’re wrong. It’s lovely, and admirable, but whenever you get called stupid, that confidence vanishes. Why is that? I never understood.”

Kaito ran his hand down their soft, purple comforter, stifling a pang of nerves that felt like it was crawling through him. There were certain things he didn’t like people knowing about him. He didn’t want his girlfriend to think less of him.

“Do you know what autism is?” Kaito asked her. He was relieved when his voice didn’t carry traces of the anxiety he was feeling.

“I’ve heard of it,” Maki said. “I think there was a kid at the orphanage who had that.”

“I was diagnosed with it when I was nine.”

-

Kaito was grateful that the killing game allowed him some semblance of structure. Sometimes, he’d check the clock and imagine what he’d be doing if he was back at home with his grandparents. He had stuck to a routine his entire life, and the killing game was no different. Everything about normalcy was _different_ , of course, in the killing game, but he still had a routine that he stuck to. Kaito _had_ to find a way to feel like he had any tidbit of control over the chaos that was happening around him. He was there at the dining hall, every morning, at 8am. He was awake way earlier than that, though, honoring his lifetime habit of getting up nice and early to work on the mess that was his hair. He had always been a pretty early riser, and always spent a lot of time doing his hair in the morning; upon exploring the bathroom in his dorm, he found a decent supply of product. At the very least, the killing game didn’t take _that_ away from him. 

After whatever bullshit transpired in the dining hall, and everyone dispersed, Kaito would go and find something quiet to do, just himself, and just for a little while. As the more time spent in the killing game passed, and the more it became clear that Shuichi and Maki Roll _needed_ Kaito, it became more and more urgent that Kaito found even a moment for himself. Shuichi and Maki Roll couldn’t know that, though. It would be wrong for a hero to want time away from his sidekicks. Kaito was a hero, and had to be available to them whenever they needed him.

It was hard to keep himself occupied during the late morning at first- back home, he had textbooks, and work sheets, and take-home work from his astronaut training program, and he could pour himself into it and lose his grip on the passage of time for a little while. Getting lost in his work came easily to him; it was something he was so _passionate_ about, and he took a lot of pride in his work. But in the killing game, he didn’t have that, and he didn’t have any of his favorite books, and he didn’t have any of his space documentaries that he had seen so many times that he could recite word for word. So he would often settle for the decision to just sit outside, on the benches under the wisterias. Despite everything that was going on around him, despite each horrible display of violence and cruelty, every day of the killing game was so deceptively pleasant when spent outside. It was warm, but never too warm to make Kaito take off his jacket, which he really didn’t like doing unless he had to. Somehow, there was a breeze, and although there was an absolute lack of birds and bugs, there was always the rustle of leaves in the trees and wisterias to focus on. Kaito had to go inside whenever the Exisals were working on construction, though. The noise was unbearable.

Shuichi eventually began to bring him small gifts before they hung out together. Once, it was a milk puzzle, an entirely white puzzle that you had to put together based on shape alone. They used to do it back as a training exercise in his astronaut program. Once, it was a book on anthropology, full of exciting and incredible stories. It felt good to be reading, and it felt good to be doing something productive towards becoming an astronaut, even if it was something as simple as putting together a puzzle. Shuichi once gave him a great pair of headphones from the Monomono machine; great for hearing each individual note, and great for blocking out the horrific whir that the Exisals made when working on landscaping and adding new buildings to the Ultimate Academy.

Kaito wondered if the Ultimate Detective could tell how much he needed that.

After the third consecutive day of the two of them spending their time after lunch together underneath the wisterias, Kaito could tell Shuichi didn’t want to talk anymore about his childhood adventures on the high sea.

Kaito didn’t have any hard evidence to support this hunch of his, but he knew anyways. Intuition. Even if Shuichi looked bored, it didn’t necessarily mean he _was_ bored; he could be tired, or confused, or exasperated by what Kaito was deciding to ramble about this time, or worrying about something he wanted to talk to Kaito about but couldn’t quite figure out how to bring up with him. But he could just _tell_ this time that Shuichi wanted to change the topic; they had this conversation, and conversations like it, a lot. Recounting his days as a grade school pirate was Kaito’s conversational go-to, because it’s a good story, and a good story has something for everyone. He asked Maki Roll the other night what her favorite blood type was, and she and Shuichi looked at him like he had started speaking Russian. It was okay, though; he needed a laugh, and some of the things Kaito thought was normal to talk about could be pretty funny. He was comfortable enough with the way that he was to have a laugh at his own expence with his best friends.

“Anyways! That’s enough of that for now. We can always pick this story up later! The next part is really good. There are mechas in it,” Kaito told Shuichi. A good story really _did_ have something for everyone.

“Yeah. I’m looking forward to it, Kaito,” Shuichi said awkwardly. Kaito didn’t mind too much. Conversations could be hard to get right, and Shuichi lacked the outward confidence Kaito used to camouflage his own social awkwardness. Sometimes people wouldn’t realize how bad Kaito was at making idle conversation. As far as Shuichi went, though, Kaito always assumed that he didn’t have the confidence to lead conversations on his own. Maybe that was something else he could help Shuichi train and improve on, too.

“So… what now?” Kaito asked, trying to determine if Shuichi had an idea of what to talk about.

“What now, indeed…” Shuichi murmured. “You know, Kaito, I really do like to hear you talk. I like your stories. I don’t want you to ever worry that I don’t.”

“Of course you like to hear my stories! My stories are great!” Kaito recited confidently- Shuichi… _wasn’t_ bothered by Kaito’s stories, was he?-

“Do you want to talk to me about space, Kaito?” Shuichi asked, his voice slightly unsure of itself. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to-”

“Are you serious?! Of course I want to!” Kaito was taken aback by the joy that he found in Shuichi _wanting_ \- going as far as _asking_ , even- him to tell him all about space. Space meant more to Kaito than anything else in his entire life, and getting a chance to share that with his best friend was exciting. He hadn’t gotten the opportunity to infodump in a very, very long time. “Space is so _vast_ , though, Shuichi! What specifically do you want me to talk about?”

“Well… has there been anything particular on your mind a lot lately?”

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking a lot about the Mariner mission a lot the last few days. Did you know that Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to do a fly-by mission of Mars?”

Shuichi looked up at Kaito, and shook his head "no.".

“Yeah, that was all the way back in the 60s… An American project. The scientists in control of the mission were really excited to see how it would turn out. It was the first time anyone got such close photos of Mars, and the first time anyone had actually seen the surface of Mars itself. But even with all of those landmarks in space exploration, it was considered a failure of a mission simply because Mars itself was a letdown.” Kaito’s voice was brimming with the kind of excitement that he couldn’t quite choke down. “The scientists were hoping for rich forests, or even established civilizations, but instead got a red wasteland.”

“But that was all the way back in the 60s! Sending a spacecraft so far into space to get photos of an alien planet is impressive on its own,” Shuichi replied, pragmatic as ever.

“It’s easy to say that now, but back then, Mars was a cherished backdrop to countless science fiction stories. People theorized that there were alien life forms to be founds, or thick forests, or maybe even people that managed to get off of Earth centuries ago and colonized it. It was our twin planet- a similar size as Earth, and similar distance to the sun. Everyone was hoping for a bit of truth to root those stories in. Everyone was hoping it wasn’t too different from us at all, but then the scientists discovered the atmosphere was too thin to sustain any kind of multicellular lifeforms. Mars is great as it is. I wouldn’t change anything about it- but I can see how it would be a letdown at the time.” Kaito glanced upwards to the sky that he could see through the slotted cracks of the overhang. It was turning orange. Even in a place like this, the Earth turned fully on its axis once a day. Once a day, there would be a sunset, and once a day, there would be a sunrise. Even the solar system was running on a routine.

“Do you think there are aliens out there, Kaito?” Shuichi asked inquisitively.

“Yes, absolutely!” Kaito declared, leaving no room for arguing otherwise. “What kind of wonderful universe would we be living in if _there_ weren’t? No, the place we live is too incredible for it to be just _us_.”

“That’s a very… Kaito thing to say.” Shuichi sighed wistfully. “But, I suppose you mean the _universe_ as the place we live, and not this academy. There’s nothing incredible here. No aliens.”

Kaito nodded noncommittally at that. Shuichi would be surprised.

Kaito _felt_ like an alien a whole lot of the time. He thought back to everyone calling him stupid at Ryoma’s trial. It was othering- aliening. His peers all thought he was a moron- he was gullible, they all thought, and naïve, and not cut out for this killing game in the slightest. His beliefs were too childlike, and his world view was too black-and-white to be anything but a liability here. Kaito was dismissed as an idiot for seeing the world differently that the rest of them. And when Kiibo turned on his flashlight during Tenko and Angie’s trial, he was the only one who recoiled in pain. No one else even batted an eye. He would definitely have a lot to talk to aliens about once he got to meet them. He had that to look forward to.

“Anyways, it’s more fun to believe they’re out there,” Kaito said, snapping him out of his own train of thought. “We’re gonna have a lot of fun together once we meet.”

“What if they can’t speak Japanese?” Shuichi asked in earnest. “How will you talk?”

“Shuichi!” Kaito interjected, almost defensive. “You’re a detective- you of all people should know that there’s _nonverbal_ communication- and besides, I speak Japanese and English, too. Maybe they’ll speak one of those.”

“I suppose you’re right… There are definitely ways to communicate other than speaking.”

“Of course!” Kaito said. He had worked so hard to be able to understand that.

Shuichi and Kaito continued their conversation as the sky above them turned from orange to black. Shuichi offered to go grab Maki Roll for their nightly training- he mentioned something about Kaito seeming tired. Kaito reassured him that he was reading into things too much.

Kaito walked out from under the overhang and looked up into the dome above them; it looked like Mars was visible tonight.

Out in space, there was no noise- it’s a vacuum. Aboard a spaceship, whether he was conducting experiments as a scientist or exploring the universe as an adventurer, he could be comforted by the steady, humming sounds of machines and pressure locked rooms. He was going to be so at peace as an astronaut, surrounded by the white noise of the space station.

Gravity on the moon is one-sixth what it is down here on Earth. Maybe he would be less clumsy there; maybe the fact that he played tennis for 2 years but lacked the hand-eye coordination to ever get good at it would be less obvious to everyone around him. Maybe everyone would be bad at tennis on the moon, and he’d fit right in. Kaito was as much of an alien as anything else in space. Kaito was ready to live and die up there.

-

When Kaito woke up, he thought he was dead.

Even with his brain struggling to tell up from down, he could tell that this wasn’t a nice afterlife. There was no new discovery of peace, or everlasting joy, like he had imagined it to be so many times- it was cold, and hard against his skin, and he didn’t understand why his head hurt, but he _did_ understand why his lungs hurt, and-

He blinked, hard, as if trying to erase the static that was clouding his vision. Kaito’s neck felt wet, and his mouth tasted like metal. A comically large toilet was fading into focus in front of him. He must have been in Hell.

Kaito guessed that it would make sense that he would go to Hell- he let down everyone who was important to him when they needed him the most. He died as big of a loser as he was after Gonta’s execution. Kokichi killed him with an Exisal, he figured, and now, instead of an afterlife full of stars, he was going to be stuck in a bathroom coughing up parts of his own lungs for all of eternity. It’s what an idiot like him deserved.

A door that Kaito didn’t have time to notice beforehand swung open, and in walked Kokichi himself.

“What-? You’re here, too-?” Kaito croaked out, managing to push himself upright into a sitting position. Blood dribbled down his chin as he spoke.

“Where else would I rather be than here with you?” Kokichi asked, a carefree smile painted on his lips.

Kaito felt woozy. The periphery of his vision began to fade into a shade even darker than black. He didn’t have the strength to wonder if it was because of blood loss, or lack of oxygen in his veins, or his fever, or because of the realization that Kokichi was here to eternally torment him-

“Shit, don’t go fainting on me now-” Kokichi said, the irritation palpable in his voice. He noticed the way Kaito began to sway back and forth, despite being in a position that could hardly be described as sitting. “I have some gifts for you, you need to be awake to see them.”

Kaito heard what Kokichi said, but didn’t have the energy to understand it. He made the decision to gently lie back down on his side, before his body chose to collapse with all of his weight. Being in control of his body felt like piloting soggy cardboard.

“No, no, sit back up,” Kokichi said, poking and prodding at Kaito’s quasi-unconscious body. Kaito could slightly register the feeling of Kokichi’s hand on his forehead. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. If I had a thermometer, I’d take your temperature and show it to you. It’s 118 degrees, tops. You’re acting like a baby.”

Kaito believed it. Of course you could run a fever that high in hell.

“Come on,” Kokichi pleaded once again. “I have water. You need to sit up to drink it. If you choke on your drink, you might get pneumonia.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Kaito groaned.

Kokichi’s small hand found itself on Kaito’s shoulder. It gripped onto him, and pathetically began tugging on him, as if he was strong enough to lift 160 pounds of dead weight into a sitting position. 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Kaito hissed with all the vitriol his dying body could muster. He sprang up onto his haunches, and then immediately curled into himself out of pain- all it took was Kokichi invading his personal space to get him to sit up.

“Okay, this works,” Kokichi said, sticking a bottle of water into Kaito’s shaky hand. “I have more when you’re done with this one, okay? You need to drink. You’re going to die if you don’t drink.”

“I’m already dead,” Kaito whispered.

“That’s not something that a great hero like you should be saying!” Kokichi shot back. His voice was laced in patronizing dickishness. “It’s not over til it’s over. Come on, you’re not done fighting this.”

Kaito closed his eyes. He couldn’t figure out what this angle was.

“Are you at all hungry?” Kokichi asked.

Kaito didn’t respond. It had been over a week since the last time he kept a meal down.

“Well, let me know if you get your appetite back! Do you want some Tylenol? I think Miu took all the good stuff out of the warehouse. She was always so selfish and inconsiderate. A baby aspirin? Would that help?”

“Do you… actually have Tylenol?” Kaito asked. He wasn’t convinced that an over the counter painkiller would help even a little bit. He wasn’t even sure if he could keep it down for it to do anything. But it was worth a try.

“What? No, moron, I’m being sarcastic,” Kokichi said with a sigh. “It’s gonna take way more than a Tylenol to do shit for you. But I do have something you might like.”

Kokichi kicked over a pile of folded clothes that Kaito didn’t notice until just then. “My jacket-?”

“I brought you a few changes of clean clothes. The killing game is over- sorry for using an Exisal to knock your stupid head unconscious, but it was more for your friends that for myself… You’re just too dangerous to have running around, y’know? You might get some dumb idea into Maki Roll or Shuichi’s head that would cause an unnecessary killing. You’re going to die in this bathroom, but when you’re gone, the last four survivors- and myself, the mastermind of this killing game- will be able to live in peace. No more killing. Just the group of us, as the last living beings on this planet you once loved. I’m tired of this killing game, so I stopped it. I’d help everyone get out, but there’s nothing worth getting out for. If you really think about it, I’m kind of the hero of this story. I’m sorry _you_ couldn’t have done more.”

It took Kaito a moment to realize that tears were rolling down his cheeks. His head hurt.

“And even if you’re going to die in here, you could at least die in clean clothes. I know how much you like to get blood on your nice white shirts, but it makes you look dumb. You can do better. And yeah, I brought you a few clean jackets. Use it as a blanket, whatever.”

Kokichi uncomfortably glanced at the door he came in through what felt like hours ago. “I gotta go do some mastermind things, but I’ll be back. I’ll bring you some dinner. Maybe something really greasy.”

The door slammed shut, and Kaito lurched forward- he grabbed onto the clean jacket that Kokichi had left at his feet, and held it so tightly in his fists that if his vision hadn’t gone black from the force of the coughs that followed, they would have looked ghost-white. Everything hurt. Above him, the fluorescent lights flickered, and as the tie-dye splotches in his vision began to fade away, he dropped his jacket and dug his head into his hands. He could smell iron. The lights flickered some more.

After what felt like forever, Kaito cautiously opened his eyes. The fluorescent lights continued to flicked above him, and he winced. The bathroom floor was cold, and hard. He wished the fluorescent lights would stop flickering. Kaito needed he a shower; he felt disgusting. Wet blood made his shirt cling to his skin, and dry blood left a disgusting crust all over him. The fluorescent lights kept flickering.

He hobbled over to the sink with strength he didn’t have left in him; Kaito could have sworn he heard his lungs creaking like a rusty door. He waited a few minutes for the water coming out of the faucet to get warm, but it never did. He took his jacket off, then his button up, and dropped them to the floor beneath him. Next was the shirt; he used it as a wash rag, wetting it in the cold, stale water and using it to wipe the blood off of him. When Kaito was done with it, it looked like the shirt of a man who got attacked by a shark.

Kaito stumbled back over to where Kokichi dropped the clean clothes off. He sat down, unsure of how much longer his legs were going to support him, and grabbed the soft, cotton shirt that he had worn every day in the killing game. It was his favorite shirt; on it was the red face of a character in kabuki theater, like the ones _heroic_ characters wore. It was his dad’s idea that Kaito started doing theater as a kid- it would help him communicate and express himself better. Perfect for a young astronaut.

The mask of a hero was the only thing stopping everyone from seeing Kaito as he really was. He worked so hard to keep it up, but he j _ust couldn't do it anymore_. He put on his button-up, too.

And then Kaito put on his jacket.

He was going to die in this jacket.

He had it tailored to his tastes when he was 14; Kaito found the long, purple jacket at a second-hand shop with his grandmother and begged her to buy it for him. He saved up for a few months, doing extra chores and yardwork, to take it to a tailor to get the space pattern sewn onto the inside. He picked the fabric out himself, too; it was soft, and felt good to rub with his fingers whenever needed the stimulation. The colors were soothing, too. Kaito decided to pin it to his right shoulder, so he could leave an arm out of a sleeve so everyone could see how wonderful it was for themselves. Kaito didn’t want anyone to have to take his word for it.

Kaito wore his jacket most of the time; he affectionately named it “the galactic jacket,” and would introduce it to people sometimes whether they asked for it or not. It felt wrong to leave the house without it. It had a nice weight to it; nothing close to being something like a weighted blanket, but it was a heavy, and had a nice amount of pressure to it. He would press his thumbs into grooves of the jacket’s buttons; they were metallic, and usually cool to the touch. Kaito loved his galactic jacket more than anything; finding a dozen more copies of it in the closet in his dorm felt like a bastardization. The fluorescent lights above him flickered some more, and he could feel himself shutting down. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, even if he had wanted to. Kaito wished he could see the stars, even just one last time. But he was going to die in a bathroom instead.

-

There were three things that could consistently ground Kaito back down to Earth on those nights after the game where he didn’t quite feel like himself. The first was the moon- but when the clouds were thick, or if he was feeling rough during the daylight, it wasn’t available. Tonight, though, as he quietly shut the front door as to not wake up Maki Roll, he was grateful to see that it was as full as ever.

The second one was crickets- there were no crickets in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles. There were no other bugs, either, or no living creatures other than the 16 students, and every day it seemed as if there was less and less of those. Kaito loved nocturnal animals, and he loved when they sang for him. It was a noise he never would have gotten back at the academy. Tonight, they were louder than they had been in a while. It must be something in the spring air. He wondered how Kaede felt about crickets- he wondered if she enjoyed their symphonies, too.

The third was the slapping sound of his slippers against tile and linoleum. The noise was a staple at the Harukawa-Momota household. Hard-soles. They were sturdy, and as good as any other sensible pair of shoes. He didn’t own any other shoes other than his menagerie of slippers; they were a sensory hell for him. He hated socks, too, and he wasn’t great at tying laces, anyway. Even when he was working out, he chose his slippers over tennis shoes. Kaito had never been a practical man.

Kaito had been going out at night a lot these days. Before the game, he liked to take night time walks- but only on special occasions, like a meteor shower he wanted to make the most out of, or when the ISS passed by at a reasonable hour of the night and he didn’t feel like going back inside afterwards. But now, after the game, he kept himself afloat by staying in motion. He felt bad leaving Maki Roll by herself, even though she knew Kaito took night time walks and was, of course, fine with it. Kaito never wanted her to wake up on accident when she was in the middle of some desperately needed sleep, and wonder where he was, and worry about if he was in danger. He slid the teddy bear they kept on the night table between her arms until he came back inside.

Maki Roll was good to Kaito; she was thoughtful, and caring. She remembered to bring ear buds for him last time they went to one of Kaede’s performances, because he had mentioned once that he liked going to idol shows but found them too overstimulating to enjoy. She was never passive-aggressive, or sarcastic when talking to him; Maki Roll was growing into a great communicator. Talking to her was easy. Kaito loved her so much.

“I think I found my favorite spaceship,” she told Kaito one day. “Cassini. It got photos of Jupiter’s moon, Europa- do you want to come look at them with me?” Kaito was so happy that not only did Maki Roll remember that he asked her that, way back in the killing game, but that she valued it enough to find an answer for him.

He was sorry she fell in love with an idiot.

Kaito was thinking about the game again. He never liked focusing at the past- he had a future full of wonder, and full of opportunities, and full of happy memories he had yet to make- but some nights it crawled up on him. He wondered what his therapist would have to say about this.

Kaito was a hero.

“You need to stop conflating your self-worth with what you can do for other people,” his therapist told him at their second appointment together. “You always have self-worth, even if you feel like you’re being a burden on the people around you.”

But… he was still a hero, _right_?

She wanted him to focus on the things he _was_ able to do before he died, and not the things that he couldn’t manage. He was sick, and scared, and in pain. He needed to give himself a break. 

“You’re autistic,” she said one day nonchalantly. “And not only were you dealing with hiding a terminal illness, but you were dealing with hiding _those_ symptoms, too. When people with autism mask their symptoms for too long, it can end badly. A lot of people with autism will mask their symptoms for years, or during high pressure situations, and then they’ll snap under a mix of their own expectations and internalized ableism. They’ll shut down, and then come out of it feeling more stupid, weak, and misunderstood by everyone around them than ever before.”

Kaito nodded.

"But the thing about that is… I don’t get the impression that you struggled with internalized ableism _before_ the game. You told me that your self-esteem was genuinely in a good place until you got out.”

“It was!” Kaito confirmed. “I got lucky. I had parents who were kind to me when I was diagnosed. None of that ABA abusive bullshit. It would have been able for them to have said, ‘Y’know, Kaito, you have a developmental disorder that impacts communication and since astronauts need great communication skills, your dream is dead in the water already.’ I was 9 when I was diagnosed. You could have written my dream to be an astronaut as a normal kid-phase, but my parents… They always took me seriously. My dad sat me down the day I was diagnosed and explained to me in depth what autism was. I was never in the dark about my symptoms. They bought me books, and fidget toys, and they helped accommodate me when I needed it. My mom helped me cut my tags off of my tennis shirts. And they were proud of me for sticking with that sport, even when I never really improved at it. They never made me feel stupid. They were direct and easy to talk to. It was even my dad’s idea for me to join theater- I learned so much about nonverbal communication there- communication in general, really- and how to express myself better… And when they died, my grandparents were just as kind and accommodating…” Kaito was quiet for a moment after that. “I miss them every single day.”

"Your parents were really onboard with you being an astronaut, then?”

“So much. They were so proud when I took the initiative to start learning English. I knew space was my life purpose when I was 4.”

Even when life was hard, Kaito’s passion for space was constant. It was reliable and steadfast.

“Do you think they impacted the way you value communication?”

“Definitely. More than anything else in my life. They believed in me every step of the way. Even when I was expressing my emotions more intensely than every other kid my age, even when my classmates thought I was off-putting because of how unconventional I can be… They believed in me. They were there in the front row, opening night of my first play. I didn’t have that big of a role, but it didn’t matter. I did theater the entire time I was in school. I’m a good actor. I wear the masks of others very well.”

“So when did you start disliking yourself, Kaito?”

What a great question that was.

Kaito wondered if he looked like a hero. If a man who wore slippers was ever the kind of savior that anyone imagined.

He wondered if a man who was an absolute moron was ever the kind of savior that anyone even wanted.

Shuichi wasn’t a moron. Shuichi was smart; he had a great eye for detail, and never seemed to get lost in his head when focusing in on an important task. _Of course_ Shuichi was the hero, not Kaito, because Shuichi was brilliant and Kaito was a r-

_No, that’s not true_ , he reassured himself. His grandparents always taught him that positive affirmations worked best against creeping self-deprecation. There are so many kinds of intelligence. Kaito and his therapist talked about that a lot.

Shuichi’s intelligence helped them solve mysteries- and, back at the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, that was essentially the same as saving everyone’s life, sans the blackened, night after night. It was just the way Shuichi had been wired; he could help his peers stay alive. He gave them a fighting chance to get out of the killing game, protecting them all from Monokuma, who would be more than willing to let them all die if the blackened got away with it. Shuichi was a hero- that had been clear to Kaito ever since Shuichi decided Kirumi was Ryoma’s killer. He didn’t back down; he saw it through to the end.

It made sense for a hero to be an unwavering pillar of justice. Shuichi was never wavered by his emotions. Kaito always struggled with controlling his own. He had outbursts a lot. He always felt like he felt everything a lot more intensely than everyone else. Kaito’s emotions were hard to manage, and they got in the way of doing right by everyone.

Kaito glanced down at his slippers. They were dirty.

Kaito’s intelligence helped Shuichi and Maki Roll find the confidence to become the best versions of themselves. And Shuichi was more than eager to give Kaito the credit for giving him the self-esteem and strength to seek the truth so confidently back in the game.

Kaito helped them all find hope when there wasn’t any. Dumb, blind optimism. He was able to pick himself up off of the bathroom floor and survive a few extra days in the Exisal hangar because he made the decision that maybe, just maybe, Kokichi was lying about the outside world being ruined. Maybe there was a reason to keep fighting.

Kaito’s peers thought he was stupid for believing in Maki Roll’s innocence when he knew nothing about her and she didn’t have an alibi for the time of Ryoma’s murder. He thought he was brave. He realized since then stupidity and bravery are twins of each other. Kaito always thought he was brave.

"Your value isn’t lessened because your skill set is different than Shuichi’s is,” his therapist reassured him once day.

Gonta thought he was stupid, too. Gonta- kind, sweet, courageous Gonta- thought he was so stupid and useless that he let himself fall for Kokichi’s plan hook, line, and sinker. Kaito reassured him once hat he _wasn’t_ stupid because he cared for everyone in their class- someone who was _truly_ stupid would only care for himself.

But Kokichi was smarter than Gonta, and Miu, and Kaito. He was able to play them like a fiddle. Kaito didn’t save any of them.

Korekiyo once said that Kaito was simple. Another time, Kokichi called Kaito slow. And Miu called him a retard. Maybe they were right.

“We’ve talked a lot about your whole sidekick gimmick,” his therapist said during one of their sessions. “Have you ever given any thought to why that’s something you use as a security blanket in your friendships?”

Kaito realized Shuichi didn’t need him when he saved everyone by pursuing Gonta as Miu’s killer; if anything, Kaito was just a naïve, gullible burden, standing in Shuichi’s way.

But Shuichi was Kaito’s first real friend.

Sure, he had plenty of sidekicks before- the pop star, the prime minister, the Noble prize winner- but they were all much older than Kaito, eager to meet and interested in the fifteen-year-old genius who aced the astronaut exams designed for people with a master’s degree, or better. He was a _savant_. And they admired him for his unshakable, reckless optimism, too. It gave them the courage they needed to chase their own dreams. But that didn’t make it a _friendship_.

Kids Kaito’s own age always thought he was weird. He was noisy, and only liked talking about a narrow range of topics. He couldn’t approach real life problems in a down to Earth way; Kaito had a teacher tell him once that he always seemed to be in his own world, and he never really grew out of that. He always felt so misunderstood. Normal friendships were weird, hard to make, and harder to maintain.

But when Kaito had a _sidekick_ who needed his support? That was easy. When people were weak, and needed his encouragement, Kaito’s natural tendencies suddenly stopped being off-putting and became inspiring instead. _That_ was the skillset he was born with. He was helpful, he was encouraging, he was _inspiring_. His sidekicks needed him, and that was good enough for him. He was only good for what he could do for others.

Outside of being Kaito’s sidekick, though, there was no reason to be around him. He had nothing else to offer.

-

Kaito leapt off of the couch when he heard a knock from the front door. Maki Roll left a while ago to buy some last-minute groceries, and he assumed it was her, with arms full of bags that she might need his help carrying. Every Friday night, Maki Roll invites the other two survivors to hang out, eat dinner, and play a board game with herself and Kaito. It was fun, and he loved how much something like that mattered to her.

But instead of Maki Roll, he saw the tip of a witch’s hat pointing upward through the glass on the top of the door.

“Oh, Himiko! Maki Roll and Shuichi aren’t here right now, but we can hang out together while we wait for them!” Kaito exclaimed with a wide smile. Himiko’s hat flopped a bit in from of her face, and he couldn’t quite look her in the eyes. He was fine with that.

She walked through the threshold without any further commentary. “I think… we should start a DND campaign,” she told him, placing a leather-bound notebook and a red bag of dice down on their coffee table. “But I don’t want to be the DM. It would be a waste if I had to give up being a mage because I had to be in charge of all of you. An absolute waste…” Himiko moved over to the couch and sat down.

“Shuichi wouldn’t make a good DM,” she added from her new, cozier spot. “I don’t think he has it in him to be in that kind of position of power.”

Kaito couldn’t help but laugh at that, and felt slightly guilty for it afterwards. “Come on, be nice! He tries his best.”

“Nyeh… _you_ could be the DM,” Himiko said, not acknowledging Kaito’s chastising. I guess you’re pretty good at the whole ‘leading people’ things, sometimes. And Maki Roll wouldn’t want to be in charge of us like that, so I guess it’s up to you, Kaito…”

Kaito sat down on the couch next to her and pulled out his phone to start some research on DND. It could be fun!

“Nyeh..? What’s this?” Himiko asked. Kaito turned his head to greet the source of Himiko’s wonder, and was greeted by Himiko holding up his weighted blanket. He usually kept it on the couch.

“Oh! It’s a weighted blanket.”

“No, I know what it is…” Himiko asked. “Is it Maki Roll’s?”

“No, it’s mine,” Kaito answered with a grin. “I’m gonna get Maki Roll one for her birthday though, I think. She likes mine and they’re good for people with PTSD, too.”

“It’s yours?” she asked, absentmindedly bringing her finger to her lips. “Why would you have something like this?”

"Oh! I’m autistic… and I bought it because I thought it could be good for me, y’know?”

“Nyeh?! You too?!” Himiko said with a small laugh and a huge smile.

“Yeah, me too!” Kaito returned her smile. He didn’t get to meet a lot of other people with autism. He always hoped he would meet _more_ autistic Ultimates- there had to be _more_ , right?- but they never seemed to cross his path. “Himiko, I’m glad you were able to tell me-”

“But wait! Kaito, you don’t… seem autistic. I wouldn’t have guessed that you were.”

“Yeah,” Kaito replied nervously. “Yeah, I actually hear that a lot. It’s by my own design. People don’t really appreciate how good I am at hiding it. I’m sure you get how exhausting that can be.”

“Nyeh… I do, actually,” Himiko said, and then got quiet for a moment. “Whenever I’m on stage doing my magic, I have to be a different person. I’m a mage, after all, but I’m also a performer… I have to be lively, and entertaining, and nosier than I’m used to being… It’s fun. I have more fun being on stage than doing anything else in the world… But it really, really drains my mana. It’s hard to keep up for a long time.”

Kaito understood. He had been masking his entire life. He was a performer, too.

“I almost wasn’t diagnosed at all, actually,” Kaito said, telling this story for one of the first times in his life. “My symptoms weren’t all that obvious, and when they were, people just chocked it up to personality quirks. Either that, or people thought I was cool for having them. I learned to speak two languages with two different alphabets before middle school. I was great at math and science, and once I realized I needed to work on my communication skills if I ever wanted to become an astronaut, joined theater, and learned to express myself better, I was perfect astronaut material.”

“Geez… conceited enough?” Himiko asked, mouth curling into a slight smile. “Then what was it that made it obvious to others?”

“It was actually when I started playing tennis, in elementary school.”

“Really? I thought that you were great at tennis.”

“No, not in the slightest… I loved the sport, and I knew everything about it. I looked up to Ryoma because he was great at the sport in a way I could never be… But even after years, I was shit at it. I didn’t have good enough coordination for anything. I couldn’t serve, I couldn’t receive. I was constantly tripping over myself on the court.”

“You were that bad at it and you played it for years?”

“I hate giving up.” Kaito rubbed his neck absentmindedly like he often did when he got nervous. He allowed a moment to pass before saying anything else. “It wasn’t normal for a kid to play a sport that long to still remain so terrible at it.”

“So did the adults in your life figure it out because of what a huge klutz you were?” Himiko asked him, still smirking slightly.

“Basically, yeah. My other fine motor skills are shit, too. We train using a robotic arm to do tasks with and wow, that took a really long time for me to master. But I did it!” Kaito said, beaming at Himiko with a proud smile and thumbs-up meant mostly for himself. “I had to work really hard on committing it to my muscle memory, but it’s something I can do now. Same with setting up dominos. I’m great at setting up dominos.”

“My master and I used to do similar exercises to strengthen my hand-eye coordination. It would be bad if my judgments were off when I was sawing someone down the middle…”

Himiko was quiet for a moment, and then looked at Kaito with sincere eyes. “Back in the killing game, I had a hard time connecting to anyone. I always have, but back then… I was just too depressed to care enough to put myself out of my comfort zone like that... Did anything like that ever happen to you?”

Kaito almost told her the truth. He wanted to be able to tell her that he absolutely _exhausted_ himself trying to come across as a reliable hero so the first friends he ever had wouldn’t abandon him once he stopped being useful. He wanted to tell her about the time Miu called him or a slur, or when he realized he was too naïve and too gullible to protect anyone in the killing game environment, and how that realization was the first time he ever _truly_ hated the way that he was made. Kaito wanted to be able to tell Himiko that he burnt himself up by putting up the mask of a hero when Shuichi could just do it _effortlessly_. But he couldn’t.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Kiibo’s flashlight function,” Kaito confessed after a moment of shameful contemplation. “It made me so uncomfortable, and he didn’t listen when I asked him to turn it off. Shutting Kokichi up was way more important to him- not that I’m one to talk, though. Kiibo probably didn’t realize just how uncomfortable I was, though. If I told him, I bet he’d understand. And my outburst about the bright light embarrassed me afterwards.”

“Something tells me you don’t talk about the fact that you’re autistic a lot...” Himiko said with a small sigh. Kaito nodded and rubbed the back of his neck some more. “I’m sorry I doubted you before.”

“Nah, I don’t blame you,” Kaito said, shifting his position on the couch slightly to get more comfortable. “Even though autism symptoms vary, and even though autism looks different on everyone, people aren’t used to seeing it on people like me.”

“I see what Maki Roll and Shuichi see in you,” Himiko said, seemingly out of nowhere, and Kaito wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or cry. “I want to be more like you.”

The next words out of Kaito’s mouth felt like they got caught in his throat; the thought of anyone wanting to be like him, wanting to be anything like an idiot like him, made his heart stop beating in his chest again. There was no speech pre-prepared in his head, no script he could use this time that would help him say the right thing.

“Himiko… you’re wonderful the way that you are. You don’t need to try to be anyone but _you_.” Kaito’s therapist told him that he was more than what he could do for other people- but knowing that _someone_ still viewed him as a hero felt so, so good. “Don’t turn yourself into someone you’re not. You’ll burn yourself out that way.”

Himiko smiled, and sat up a bit on the couch. “Anyways, I have an idea, about your Kiibo problem. You should buy some sunglasses for the next time he tries any funny business. Aviators. Rose-tinted shades. They’d fit an optometrist like you nicely.”

Before Kaito could respond to that, there was a knock at the door. Behind it was a duet of soft, squabbling voices.

“Well- that’s gotta be Shuichi and Maki Roll,” Kaito said, standing up to unlock the door to let them in. Didn’t Shuichi say he’d bring the board games for tonight? Maki Roll’s hands would be full of groceries. They needed his help. He told himself that the next time he went shopping, he should look for some rose-tinted aviators like Himiko suggested. Maybe those wouldn’t be such a bad investment.


End file.
